Recovering Baptist

The latest version of Ubuntu Linux makes a huge claim. For starters, as always, it’s totally free. Free as in beer (who doesn’t like good, free beer?) and free as in speech (that is, you have total freedom to change the code and redistribute it for free). Upgrades are completely free, and if I decide that I want a different version of Linux, I’m free to try something else, you guessed it, for free.

The nice thing about a free OS is that it frees up money for other things, like killer hardware. I could go into all of what makes this machine so great, but let’s just say that the specs are more than good enough. I can watch a DVD while watching a youtube video AND pulling off all the nifty desktop tricks. Which brings me to…

Wow, does Linux now have some really killer tricks. No, pretty desktop tricks are really not that important. But they do make things nice. Honestly, that’s half of what made OSX so important for the Mac. Yes, the Mac just works, but it looks good doing it. And just as soon as I figure out how to record a video I’ll show here just how pretty it is. Let’s just say that I’ve got six different “desktops”, and I can rotate from one to another in all sorts of really cool ways. The videos I’ve seen online don’t do the compiz cube justice, partly because the quality is never high enough. I’m pretty jaded, but I find myself moving from one side of the cube (which is misnamed, since I’ve chosen something that has eight faces) to another just for laughs. Yeah, I’m a geek.

So, yes, I’m baiting my Mac friends. Don’t get me wrong, your machines are great. But so is mine, and it’s half the price with free upgrades for life and my choice of hardware. Oh yeah, and our commercials don’t exist, but if they did, they wouldn’t have the funnier guy representing the other guy’s product…

One of the worst things about losing my job was losing my laptop. Yeah, I know that’s stupid, but it’s true. The more I look back at it, that job and I really weren’t meant for each other, but that laptop, well, it was nice. It ran Microsoft Windows XP. One of the last things I did on it was to master some music.

Before packing up the laptop, I copied all of my files over to my linux server. No problem. Everything worked nicely. Now I need to create some music CD’s from the files I copied to my server. Simple enough. I figured that this morning was a good time to fire up my wife’s laptop, which is running Vista, to take care of that. Sounded easy enough. Nope. So far this morning I’ve had everything from networking problems to having the computer completely hang. At least older versions of Windows had the grace to give a blue screen when things were totally FUBARed.

So now I’m using my ancient XP laptop to get the files I need. I’m having to copy the files to an external drive so I can then connect that to the Vista machine and burn the CD’s. I can’t wait for my new linux desktop to be up and running so I can bypass all of this Microsoft mess.

One of the many annoyances of losing my job is that I’m losing my laptop. That’s a shame, because it’s a killer machine. So what to do next?

I thought about buying a laptop, but even my killer laptop has some quirks. And if I want something portable, then I want it very portable. I considered something ultra tiny (I found one cool HP machine with a 9″ screen and no moving parts). But I also need something with enough horsepower to edit audio. And I’d like my desktop to look totally awesome.

Since I can’t afford a Mac, the only way to have a great computer experience is with linux. Specifically I plan on using Ubuntu’s latest Hardy Heron release. From everything I’ve heard, it’s as pretty as, if not prettier than, Mac. And it’s free. Want to upgrade the OS when it comes out? $0 Want some new software? Free Need some support? Plenty of help online.

I just placed an order for the parts for my new computer. I’ve never built one completely from scratch, but I’m looking forward to trying it. And I’ve got plenty of time on my hands these days. And for those Mac nuts who are going to say that PC and Mac work out when you consider what you’re getting for your money, that’s not true when you build it yourself. Assuming I got all the parts I need (I might be missing a cable or something stupid like that), the total for this new machine is $454, and it’s completely loaded. I can’t wait to get it up and running, but while I’m waiting for the parts to arrive, I guess I’ll work on the kitchen. Time to climb into the attic and run some electric cables…

There are a lot of times when I feel like I’m a walking, breathing Northern Tools and Equipment advertisement. I am the guy who would use a 3000rpm mixer to make a pitcher of lemonade. So when I spilled my morning coffee on my keyboard, I knew exactly where to go - my garage. I hooked up the blowgun to the compressor and started blowing junk out of the keyboard at 90 psi.

I’ve noticed from time to time that my keys occasionally stick, and now I know why. There was enough cat hair stuck under the keys to incarnate a whole new cat. There are some things I just didn’t want to know…

Lent is not a very popular topic. You don’t usually ask someone, “so what are you giving up for Lent” in the same way you ask, “so what are you doing for Christmas?” Of course, maybe that’s because the marketing people haven’t figured out how to make money off of Lent. Sure there’s Mardi Gras, but at best that’s about Fat Tuesday and at worst it’s an excuse for debauchery. There are no Lent gifts; I’ve never seen a Lent greeting card; there are no obligatory Lent parties where where your presence or lack thereof will be duly noted. Maybe this is why I’m drawn to it.

I didn’t grow up practicing Lent. Baptists don’t particularly like Lent; it’s too Catholic. But in recent years I’ve been introduced to Lent and its purpose, which is quite strange. Forty days of giving up something good for the purpose of physically particularlizing our need for Christ seems like such a strange and old-fashioned customer. But it’s a custom that we post-moderns should embrace. Contrary to what many Christians want to admit Age of Enlightenment infiltrated Christianity and attempted to reduce our faith to a series of logical conclusions, but there is so much more meaning to our lives than mere logic can bring. And so Lent, with its seemingly outdated requirements, can be meaningful, provided that we actually engage with it and don’t just mindlessly follow a series of proscribed rules.

And so, for a very post-modern observation of Lent I’m giving up a very post-modern activity. From now until Easter I am giving up idle internet surfing. It’s not that I’m giving up the ‘net altogether, just those sites that typically suck my time such as Fark, Drudge, Digg, etc. For some people this might not seem like a major thing to give up, but when you work at home by yourself, those sorts of sites replace the water cooler; they are where I go when I have a few minutes of downtime between conference calls or emails. I’ve decided that sites like atlbloggers.net or even facebook (which I’m being sucked in to) are places where I talk to friends and are not idle surfing, so I’ll still be around there. But for some of my favorite sites it’s goodbye until Easter.

So, if for the next month plus I seem like I don’t know what’s going on in the world, now you know why…

All my friends know that I’m really not a big fan of Christmas. Put me in the Charlie Brown camp - the overcommercialization of a religious (pick your favorite religion - Christianity, ancient Roman Paganism, etc.) holiday combined with the ever increasing time we have to endure the insufferable ads makes me grumpier than usual.

Last night I was flipping channels between Mythbusters reruns and Monday Night Football. I don’t remember which channel ran the ad, but the advertising assault has begun. Garmin, the maker of an amazing line of GPS receivers, was running an ad for its latest product, but it did so by ruining Carol of the Bells. Why do we have to see snowflake ads when there isn’t even any snow to speak of in the Rockies, and why did they have to bastardize an otherwise great song???

I happen to be buying GPS equipment for work these days. I’m glad my customer is using another product. I really don’t feel like buying $12,000 worth of product from Garmin right now. Talk about backfiring marketing!

There’s a common theme in the communications world. Those of us in the know trust the other person’s technology. Having worked for the local monopoly phone company for several years, I don’t trust ADSL. I think it’s fragile and generally unreliable. The fact that my service was flaky because my cat was peeing on a phone jack may have something to do with that. But my coworkers who have a cable background refuse to use Comcast for internet access. I know I’m in the minority, but I generally like my Comcast service. Yeah, I’m a strange guy.

Since I’m in the process of replacing my work PC I didn’t notice any issues yesterday, but I read that Comcast has had real problems for the last couple of days. And this morning I know something isn’t right. For the first time in nearly a year my IP address has changed, and now the world thinks I’m in Los Angeles instead of Atlanta. I don’t know what’s going on, but I figure that won’t last long. I hope not, because I’ve lost my wonderful 15+ mbps connection!

And yes, that I even care just proves what a geek I am. Speaking of geeking out, I just got a call, and my new work PC should arrive tomorrow. Duo core 2.0 Ghz processor with 2GB RAM. Hopefully this one has a decent cooling system. Let’s hope. Right now I have to take my old Thinkpad out of the freezer in hopes of it working long enough for me to get the last of my data off of it.

Update - yeah! The freezer trick worked. If you have a thinkpad and ever get the “fan error” message while booting up, try putting it in the freezer for about 5 minutes. It works, but it’s very strange wiping the ice off the screen.

My work PC is on its last legs. It’s now regularly overheating and shutting down, and I’ve already received the dreaded “fan error” message once. I’m surrounding it with anything I can pull out of my freezer in hopes that it will keep working long enough for me to copy everything I need to another disk.

Hopefully it will completely die right after I finish backing it up so I can spend the rest of the week playing golf. If you’re interested, let me know. My email address is recoveringbaptist and I use google’s email.

I was warned. I knew better. My friend told me not to do it, but I did it anyway. Rather than continue to tweak my server, I decided to just start over and install Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. Most of my data was in a safe place, but I forgot to back up one little thing - my database. Since everything in WordPress is stored in the database, that means I’ve pretty much lost all of my posts.

If you’re really interested in what I’ve said in the past 20 months that I’ve been blogging, a lot of it can be found at atlbloggers.net. The shame is that some of my more personal work, such as my thoughts on my mom, seem to be lost forever. I’ve also lost all of my comments, which means that a few really good exchanges are gone. I’m looking forward to starting a few new ones. So now that I’ve finally got the server working again, hopefully I can focus on actually writing again.